Travelport announced the Asia Pacific launch of Travelport Trip Assist, a new mobile product for agencies.

The new product enables travel agencies to meet the expectations of today’s mobile-first customer. It is projected that in 2017, 50% of global mobile travel sales will originate in Asia Pacific. This is expected to grow, especially in markets like China where they are expected to account for nearly 75% of online bookings by 2020.

Travelport is showcasing the Trip Assist technology in Sydney this week, at its annual APAC customer conference event, Travelport LIVE. It has already been launched in the EMEA region, with launch customer XL Travel in South Africa.

Trip Assist will help travel agencies by providing advanced mobile travel capabilities such as flexible itinerary management, real-time communications and day of travel assistance.

With high internet and mobile penetration, travelers in APAC expect faster and easier access to travel. Mobile bookings in APAC are growing at a faster rate than in any other region. In the past five years, mobile travel sales have seen double digit growth in markets like South Korea (58.7%), Australia (52.2%) and China (49.9%). It is estimated that by 2020, 76% of the growth of online travel will come from mobile sales.

With Trip Assist, TMCs and other travel agencies can grow more valuable relationships with travelers by providing the right experience and information at the right time, in the channel they use most, the smartphone. It provides agencies with more opportunities to connect, support and engage end-travelers at every stage of their journey, providing a seamless, trusted and personalized mobile customer experience in line with the expectations of today’s ‘always-on’ traveler.

These features ensure continuous engagement throughout trips with more opportunities for the agencies to guide, influence and connect with their customers en route.

One of the key elements of Trip Assist is Travelport Engage, a flexible mobile messaging tool which delivers personalized travel updates during and after every trip.

Real-time assistance is always at hand – with the tap of a finger, travelers are connected directly to a support agent. Traveler engagement is the main focus with later features planned to encourage user control via the ability to request flight changes, select preferred seating and the ability to synch trip information with personal calendars from within the app.

Commenting on the launch of Trip Assist in APAC, Fergal Kelly, CCO of Travelport Digital commented, “The increasingly connected traveler expects support throughout their trip. Customer engagement via mobile is now critical for agencies of all sizes and we believe that the business travel industry and business travelers are not yet well-served. We are delighted to bring Trip Assist to TMCs and travel agencies in this region as part of Travelport’s continuously expanding range of services.”

To view a live demo of Travelport Trip Assist and find out more about the product, agencies can request more information and a one-to-one demo at this link: https://www.travelport.com/trip-assist